Description
Art is a creative pursuit intended to produce. The great philosopher Plato attempted to define Art, whose purpose is to discover the realities in the higher realm of the cosmos. The politics of cultural production have remained in the hands of the powerful. The Black sacred songs tradition emerged as not just sounds of solace but also as the rhythms of respite and resistance against slavery and segregation daunting the ‘Shining City upon a hill. The neo-classical realist scholar Walt known for mocking Liberalism for upholding utopia argues – “Liberals are musicians, Realists are jocks.” He equates music with harmony. Even the beats of the song ‘Oh Freedom’ by Odetta go from 88 to 108 beats per minute, indicating that these songs were meant to be an ‘organized’ activity which is a pre-requisite for mobilization of the masses.
Starting from the Soul Music, which has a history of shifting from the margins to the mainstream and hence, having a mass appeal among the Whites in America to the Gospel and the Spiritual hymns which charged up the morale of those facing violence in the South - Music in America, too had various forms. The ruling class used one to perpetuate the idea of a ‘nation,’ and the other was used for recording the dissatisfaction and opposition to social norms in the resistance songs. Pete Seeger’s ‘We Shall Overcome’ is inherited from a traditional Black gospel song- “I will be alright.”
The paper aims to trace the politics of African American Music as a tool to create rage, resistance, and desire and also to explore the processes and circumstances under which the songs were created. It also attempts to analyze whether the cult of African American Music was successful in impacting the American psyche or has it just remained an ornamental form of Art
